Hymn of the Carrier Pilots
Flanker 2 Stories
memoirs by Ryan but you might have known me as Gleek and if thats not familiar you might have known me as Toomer
Once a new player from Europe and I teamed up for some gunzo with two AI. After our initial pass with the bogies just off the coast from Saki, I took the lead in turning to pursue one of the bandits that I already had lost sight with. No Joy. My friend from Europe followed suit and messaged me that he would follow and cover me. The Flanker banked hard as was pulling G’s until one of the bogies came into sight, also turning hard in an attempt to escape an opportunity to put him in my sights. Still turning, I saw muzzle flashes passing the cockpit. That second bogie reversed somehow and droped in behind me. Not wishing to disengage from the bogie I was already tallied on and slowly pulling lead, I was able to quickly text message my wingman, "Get this guy off me!"
My wingman responded quickly and confidently, "Roger, OMW." Feeling relieved of having to worry about this bogie on my six and knowing that my wingman could not be too far away I continued to pull lead on this turning bandit. More muzzle flashes whizzed by but I did not worry. Out of the blue my warnings all went off and I heard the dreaded explosion of the Flanker powerplant. I had been hit. I guessed my wingman didn’t get to him in time, I thought as the Flanker pointed towards the water. Then I bashed myself for not evading and should have disengaged with that bandit. Then a text message flashed from my wingman, "I got him! He’s going down." I replied, "Good work, but they got me." The plane continued to drop towards the sea and I soon became slightly curious when my wingman didn’t respond at all. Checking the external views I found the two AI bandits disengaged and continuing their route but my Flanker was the only plane going down. I replied, "No, you got me!" in text chareacters that were unable to express my mild anger mixed with lighthearted understanding. The Flanker dived into the sea and broke apart into a thousand pieces.
"Sorry"
Typically in a a gunzo room players flew in a standby pattern to await their turn to challenge the lead gunner. Two Flankers would pass and gunfight, "Two men enter, one man leave" sort of thing. Then the next player drops in to fight the winner (unless the winner had to land to rearm and refuel first). Once, flying pattern standing by for my turn at about 2000 km south of the Yalta coastline two friends (acquantances that were on my ICQ list that I communicated with often) were engaged and in a sustained fight. At some point the two Flankers put enough distance between one another to come in at each other for another initial pass. But, instead of flying offset they were flying straight towards each other in a game of chicken…except no one flinched. One second two planes were flying towards each other at high speed and the next second two fireballs were speeding away from each other at not as high speed. It happens all the time in the cockpit but observing it at 2000km was a pretty spectacular sight. It seemed unexpected because both wrote some astonishing messages after. "Dang" and "Toom, did you see that?!?!"
Many times Flanker pilots would converge on an IRC chat (mIRC) to hook up and get some flight time. It was not common for a bunch of newbies and intermeds to get together and get someone to host a flight which only involved giving out your IP address. Once that was done, the host would set it up and within minutes all your MIRC buddies are joining you for a session. Too many times so-called Aces hung around this MIRC room. Most of them were the type to never respond if anyone not of their rank address them at all, but you would always see them logged in while we intermed-noobs were working together to get some combat going. You can guess what would commonly happen.
Here we are, MIRC friends that have chatted with each other as well as hosted each other at one time or another. All of a sudden that so-called Ace comes into the session. This so-called Ace, who was not invited by anyone to come into the server starts blowing everyone out of the sky. And still not saying a word when addressed. No one complained when he/she was booted from the server of they got their but kicked when all of us would gang up to fly against him or her.